


In Tandem

by peridotRapture



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, 弱虫ペダル | Yowamushi Pedal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:43:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peridotRapture/pseuds/peridotRapture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kings of the 17th ward are just trying to carve out a living. The Kinjou Squad are just trying to carve up some ghouls. Both objectives are bound to go terribly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Tandem

Arakita clicked his tongue and knocked on the apartment door, a little too harshly to be considered polite. But if his information was correct, the poor bastard inside wouldn't mind much.

It seemed like the people who lived here knew to keep to themselves, a suspicion that was confirmed when Arakita shoved his shoulder into the wood until the lock gave and no one came to investigate. He scoffed, and wheeled his large luggage bag into the room after him.

He didn't have to go far into the dreary apartment to find him, his target was right in the kitchen. In essence, it was something he had seen many times, something he had mocked humans for in the past. But ever since Fukutomi’s damn philosophies had wriggled their way into his head it now made him sick with pity, of all emotions.

It was just like Toudou’s scouts had reported: Japanese male, age 34, suicide by hanging.

He was still getting used to the violent way his stomach would churn like he had eaten human food, and the way his heart would stop beating then march on all too loudly.

He slammed the door shut behind him, hard enough to make it stay. He knelt down beside the bag, but froze when the slider hit the end of the zip. He scowled, and looked around the room as if there was anything but peeling paint to judge him. He stood on his toes, and whispered a few words he had heard the preachers use when he had passed by funerals.

After a pause, he cleared his throat and stepped away. He pulled out his pocket knife. He didn't know why he had been sent out to do this grunt work; it was harder to ignore the rumbling of his stomach, and fight back the pinching behind his eyes than to cut the man down.

Which was probably why Fukutomi had sent him in the first place.

* * *

A year of training after the night that changed his life, Onoda had been assigned to learn from one of the best teams in Tokyo. His professors unanimously decided that field experience would benefit him more than a formal classroom. It felt like more of a death sentence, though, and the indifferent receptionist just tied a noose around his neck with a 'please take a seat, they'll be with you in a moment'

He settled into the chair in the lobby, sitting stiffly against the metal sheet that was masquerading as a cushion. The entire interior of the Kita branch of the CCG had a very metallic feel to it: at least, something very industrial and clean. There was not a single scuff on the floor, not a single chip in the paint. The people passing through the lobby did so with authority, dressed in fitted suits and formal dresses, making Onoda feel even more out of place in the suit he had been using for a year.

He sighed, and glanced at his phone. He had a ‘good luck!!!’ message from his mother. He appreciated that she had remembered, but felt it would have meant more if it wasn't followed by a request to pick up some detergent on the way home.

“Are you Onoda Sakamichi?” A man asked. Onoda looked up. The man was only a few years older than him, with long curly black hair that was pulled back in a neat ponytail. A few strands that were too short to reach behind his head framed his face, matching his intelligent eyes.

“Yes! I am!” He stuttered, and jumped up, eagerly offering his hand to shake “Onoda Sakamichi, nice to meet you!”

“Teshima Junta, charmed" The man shook his hand with an amused smile "If you would follow me, I'll introduce you to the rest of the team.”

Teshima lead him beyond the counter, beneath the Ghoul Sensor, and into the building proper. He had to shift his shoulders out the way of people going the opposite way down the halls, and he flippantly thought that if it weren't for Teshima's presence he probably would have been knocked to the ground a few times.

Onoda’s heart was thumping loudly in his ears by the time the man stopped in front of one of many far spread wooden doors.

“This is it. Are you ready?”

Onoda nodded.

There was a loud thump and an even louder battle cry that resonated, muffled, through the wall. Both of them glanced at the door, and his guide sighed.

“Are you sure, you might need a second.”

“I-I’m ready.”

“Alright…” Teshima turned the handle, and pushed the door open.

The conference table was haphazardly shoved against the off white wall, and in its place a small red haired man was wrestling someone who resembled a shaven bear, and losing. Not just the fight, his mind too, apparently. Onoda could hear him growling faintly, and was pretty sure he was foaming at the mouth.

Two others were off to the side. The man with green hair was radiating waves of _done_ ; he had wheeled his chair as far away from the fight as possible, and was hiding his head in his hands as if that would teleport him to somewhere calmer.

The only one who noticed them was a man with blonde hair that hung loose around his face. His eyes lit up when he saw them.

“Hello to you too Hajime.” Teshima said to him, and the man smiled brightly.

“Teshima!” The large man shouted, looking away from his opponent for just long enough for the smaller man to deck him across the face.

He took it like a light breeze.

“Is he the new kid?”

All movement stilled, and four pairs of eyes were on him. Onoda shifted under their weight.

He bowed “I’m Onoda Sakamichi, It’s a pleasure to be working with you!”

“Did you really kill a ghoul with a broken quinque?” The redhead asked, suddenly right in front of Onoda’s face.

He chuckled awkwardly as he took a step back “Yeah, but-”

“And save three babes?” The other took a step forward, remaining deep in Onoda's personal bubble.

“What, no I-” He took another step back.

“And punch a King in the face?”

“What?”

“Naruko!” The bear said with a good hearted laugh. He clapped Onoda on the back, nearly dislocating his shoulder “Relax. Everything the Academy had to say about you was impressive.”

“Thank you sir.” Onoda sputtered.

* * *

Exiting the building, his ears caught the sounds of some obnoxious pop song, the bass rattling the windows of the car that was playing it. He could see a hand tapping the beat on the top of the car through the open driver's side window.

He and Shinkai had very different definitions of 'discrete.'

Arakita, pulling the now much heavier suitcase behind him, scowled and kicked the back bumper. Shinkai spied him through the rearview mirror, and did his stupid snap-point at him though the reflection. He shut the car off (killing the music, thank god), got out, and moseyed back to join Arakita. He tried a few times to unlock the trunk before Arakita snapped.

"Jesus, give it to me." He shoved his hand away and turned the key sharply himself.

There were two other full suitcases in trunk, and Arakita struggled to cram the third in and shut the door. If it was open too long, the people passing them on the sidewalk would smell the decay, and they were already getting a few curious looks from passersby.

Luckily it would take nothing short of a quinque to the face to rush Shinkai Hayato. He lackadaisical pushed the two cases to the side, and crammed the third in, and easily shut the door.

“Ready?” he asked, walking back to the driver’s seat. Arakita glared at him, and went to the passenger's.

The engine of the crappy four door had to turn over a few times, but soon enough they were leaving the slums and heading west, from the residential area to the heart of the city.

When they were a good distance away, Arakita scowled "What were you thinking! Were you trying to draw attention to us!?"

"Yes." Shinaki said "You have to stand out just enough to not be suspicious. If a Dove came around asking about ghouls, people would remember the car sitting there quietly instead of the one being loud." He smiled sheepishly "and, I like that song."

That was really fucking stupid, but knowing Shinkai's luck it would probably work, just to spite him.

Luckily, Shinkai’s phone vibrated, saving him from having to respond. He snatched it out of the cup holder.

“Does Yuuto really have to remind you to pick him up?”

“He thinks he does.” He glanced at the phone in Arakita's hands "is he ok?"

Arakita nodded, and shot a text back.

He didn't think that he and Shinkai had that different typing styles, but it still made him feel warm when Yuuto could tell them apart.

* * *

After introductions the room was put back in order and everyone was seated. Onoda found himself staring blankly at a report about the Wolf and the Oni, filled with maps and charts that were only vaguely coherent to his nerves numbed mind. Teshima was presenting the information at the head of the table with his partner Aoyagi, who occasionally pointed to places on the map spread on the wall behind them.

Too late, he realised that everyone had turned to the next page. He was trying to figure out a way to flip his page discreetly, when the door suddenly opened. A man with black hair who was Onoda's age walked in first. He looked oddly familiar, but all ponderings to his identity were halted when he saw the person behind him.

Growing up, Onoda was never really preoccupied with ghouls. He was lucky enough to grow up in an area that was well protected. For him, it was like burglary; he knew it happened, he saw news reports, but he never thought it would happen to him until it did. It was only after it happened that Onoda was urged to do something about it.

If he had to choose one thing that defined his year at the Academy, it would be this man. His name was on the lips of every aspiring Investigator. It was impossible to find an instructor who didn't at least begrudgingly respect him. He was the face of the 17th Ward, a model Investigator, Rank 1 Kinjou Shingo.

Onoda didn't think it would be this jarring to see him out of his prosthetic.

The man with black hair took the empty seat next between Onoda and Naruko as Kinjou maneuvered his wheelchair to the head of the table, next to Makishima. His head turned to Onoda, and Onoda felt that the glasses covering his eyes had to have an X-ray feature or something because he had never felt so exposed in his life. The squad leader nodded, seemingly approving of their new member, and then prompted Teshima to continue.

"We've narrowed down the possible location of their base to three places" he turned to the map, marker in hand, and drew a dot on three separate buildings spread far around the city "of course, all of the Kings might move between the three locations, as we found signs of the Ninja in a building near Site 2."

"Signs?" Onoda asked, immediately regretting it when everyone glanced up to the man who had shook his hand like he was trying to break it. Onoda didn't know what he had done to piss Makishima off, but he hoped the man didn't hold grudges.

"...empty bottle of hairspray" Makishima muttered.

Onoda's raised his eyebrows. He had never thought of ghouls as very hygienic creatures.

"Teshima, Aoyagi, investigate the third location." Kinjou said.

The two of them nodded, and Teshima flipped through his copy of the report.

"Tadokoro, Naruko, Imaizumi, take the first site. Makishima, Onoda, the second."

Onoda gulped, and muttered his 'yes sir' along with the others.

* * *

Shinkai pulled behind one of the many fire-damaged grey buildings, where Manami was waiting, swinging his feet from the lip of the loading dock. He was sweating and breathing hard, he’d probably just gotten there. Arakita sighed. At least he showed up.

Manami and Shinkai exchanged greetings as the two of them got out of the car.

“How’d it go?” Manami asked.

“Awful.” Arakita said as he popped the trunk “we need a new car, this piece of shits gonna collapse.”

Manami nodded, and took the suitcase Shinkai passed up to him “I'll see what I can do, dunno how soon I can get one though.”

“Uh huh.” So Arakita would have to do it himself then. How the hell was this kid a King?

Why the hell was he using ‘King’ unironically?

Damnit Toudou.

The three of them wheeled the suitcases from the loading dock and into the building. What was now Hakone was a mostly destroyed condemned building that Toudou had purchased when Fuku-chan, Shinkai and he restarted the operation when they were 16. It was as structurally unsound as the day they bought it. Arakita could see a few small heads peeking around the bashed corners and through the holes in the walls. The little shits had good noses.

"Scram, its not time for dinner yet." He growled. The kids apparently had good ears too, because he heard them scatter further back into the place, floorboards creaking.

Shinkai tsked "And you wonder why they don't like you."

"No I don't, I revel in it." He said dryly, and Shinkai laughed.

They brought the cases to the only usable conference room that served as a dining hall. This was one of the only areas of the building that had high amounts of traffic; a few of the ghouls that live under their protection earned their keep here, doing chores like portioning the humans up and freezing them in the large, loud freezers in the room adjacent.

One of the six of them would usually preside over tasks like this if they weren't out scouting their territory, preparing for raids, or in Toudou's case, at work. Something this menial was usually pushed on the youngest of them, but seeing as how even at 16 Manami had all the reliability of a wet paper bag, today the task had been eagerly snached up by the next in line.

All workers in the room glanced up at them as they entered, and they were welcomed with a barrage of meek greetings and even a few bows.

"Shinkai-kun!" came an excited voice, and the three of them glanced up. Izumida had abandoned his disgruntled white haired friend to greet them, nearly tripping over his feet as he stopped in front of them.

Shinkai smiled at the boy as they fist bumped. Arakita had no idea how Shinkai had the patience to handle Izumida's awkward little fanboy crush. He could see Manami eyeing the door out of the corner of his eye, and felt a pang of empathy. However, they actually had him here ready to do work, and he couldn't just let him run off. He cleared his throat, loud enough to get the boy's attention, and pushed his bikaku over the belt of his pants, shifting the blue and black muscle side to side threateningly. Manami pouted, crestfallen.

Izumida was finally done circumventing the point, and his expression more serious. "Fukutomi wanted to see us in the War Room." He glanced back at the ghouls busying themselves with the suitcases and lowered his voice "He wants to change the time of the raid."

"To when?"

"Tonight."

Arakita clenched his teeth. He was sure Fukutomi had a good reason, but that didn't make it any less inconvenient.

At least Manami looked excited

**Author's Note:**

> This is very very old. I have I think, three more completed Hakone-centric chapters already written. idk why I'm even putting these up tbh.


End file.
